Customer Reviews

Hot Wheels Toy Story 3 Sparks Turbo Launcher

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The Hot Wheels Toy Story 3 Sparks Turbo Launcher is the latest disappointment in my son's collection of Toy Story 3 branded merchandise. I don't understand why the overpriced merchandise for Toy Story 3 can't be equal to the quality of the movie. It isn't like this stuff is cheap.

We can usually rely on Hot Wheels branded merchandise to be well made and provide for hours of fun. Before buying the Hot Wheels Toy Story 3 Sparks Turbo Launcher, the "usually" in the preceding sentence was "always."

To the manufacturer's credit, the Hot Wheels Toy Story 3 Sparks Turbo Launcher comes out of the box fully assembled. It comes with one car, but has two launching slots. I'm sure some bean counter somewhere had a spreadsheet to justify that decision. So you get the Hot Wheels Toy Story 3 Sparks Turbo Launcher out and you set it on the ground. You push the little arms back, put the included car in one slot, and one of your own cars in the other (yes, I know, what respectable family doesn't have at least five Hot Wheels cars in the sofa cushions?), and you press the buttons on the back. The little robot arms go forward, the cars shoot out of its feet, race across the floor, and crash into your newly refinished wood work.

Whoopee.

Note that the car does not lock into the slot. If you tip the Hot Wheels Toy Story 3 Sparks Turbo Launcher forward, one or both of your cars will roll out and have to be penalized for a false start. To me, the most fascinating part of the Hot Wheels Toy Story 3 Sparks Turbo Launcher is that you can't seem to launch the cars unless the Hot Wheels Toy Story 3 Sparks Turbo Launcher is on the ground. I haven't figured out how the Hot Wheels Toy Story 3 Sparks Turbo Launcher stops the launch yet, but clearly the wizards at the Hot Wheels Corporation put more thought into this feature than how children will have any real fun with the Hot Wheels Toy Story 3 Sparks Turbo Launcher.

It certainly works as designed. While the cover art seems to imply that the Hot Wheels Toy Story 3 Sparks Turbo Launcher will roll after the cars after it launches them, even my finely-tuned legal brain could find nothing further to back that assumption. I demonstrated the proper and safe operation of the Hot Wheels Toy Story 3 Sparks Turbo Launcher to my five year old son. We watched the cars roll across his bedroom floor and then under an 800 lb antique dresser. He then looked at me and asked, "Is that all it does? I thought it rolled after the cars too." Well son, it doesn't have wheels so it can't roll. But look - the arms move!

He then got his beloved Toy Story 2 Buzz Light Year robot down and stood it next to the Hot Wheels Toy Story 3 Sparks Turbo Launcher. Buzz towered above the Hot Wheels Toy Story 3 Sparks Turbo Launcher. He looked up at me with a puzzled expression and said, "That isn't right." How do you explain differences in scale to a five year old who is coming off a sugar high and up past his bed time? I gave him a hug and told him I love him.

The Hot Wheels Toy Story 3 Sparks Turbo Launcher earned an educational value of three stars because it teaches a valuable lesson: sometimes life can be pretty disappointing. It is too bad the boy is learning this at such an early age.

We agreed that we will be returning the Hot Wheels Toy Story 3 Sparks Turbo Launcher once I get the dresser moved and we recover the car with which it came.

This toy is not worth the money all it does is take up room and shoots two cars out in random directions by pushing a difficult arm. Terrible product and idea. The car that comes with it is worth about two bucks because its cooler than a avg hot wheel but still save your money!

My son received this toy for his 4th birthday. He played with it exactly twice before it lost it's appeal. It's an extremely simple toy. You put the car in, push a button and it shoots the car out. Not very exciting and certainly not worth $15.

My six-year-old and I like to have "blast off races" using this launcher. It's fun. It's not a toy that's going to occupy our time for more than 10-20 minutes, but it's fun to have around & launch cars out of every now and then. I'd recommend it, especially if you like Toy Story.

I personally bought two of these at a really low price so I didnt take the bad reviews into account, but they are true. For the normal price, it is not worth it. It doesnt roll and it holds the attention for like 2 minutes. The only way Id recommend it is if your child is obsessed with Toy Story 3 and collects all the characters. He/she might just like to have this as an oversized action figure. As far as using it for Hot Wheels though, forget it.

I got this for my kids for Christmas. They only played with it for about an hour and I haven't seen it since.

it's not really easy to shoot the cars out. :/ my almost 6 year old can do it barely... i'd go for something else!

The idea looks fun, but an adult or older kid has to place the arms back tightly every time and it only access special cars. Not worth more than 2.00

Even after reading other reviews and reading the measurements of the toy, I was still expecting much more. It was so tiny! Even the box made it look bigger. Save your money and buy something better. The only thing I liked was the car that came with it. Other than that, junk.

My son loves this. He is 5 and we picked this up for him at Disneyland. His brother chose a pack of TS3 cars, so it was perfect as they spent their awake time launching cars across the hotel.
When we got home, he hooked it up to his hot wheels loop-de-loop and was so excited to see the cars were launched with enough speed to loop around. Loved it! Don't know why this has negative reviews, it is exactly what it claims to be!